Mending
by Leca B
Summary: All the pain goes out the window the moment they put her son in her arms. He's perfect. Ten little toes and ten little fingers. Pink, wrinkled face and crying up a storm. He's tiny and warm and the way he instinctively cuddles up to her makes something inside her - the something broken that's been twisted and gnarled and broken - mend back together and fall into place.


A/N: Hello! Sooo, I know I've been MIA for practically the entire year, but as I might have told you guys before, I was studying to get into med school. And guess what? I did! So I can concentrate on more mundane endeavors.

So! A long, long time ago I promised Asuna here (I don't even know if you have the same penname) I would write Logan's birth. I guess you can say I'll deliver it now. Ha! Get it? *Shows up six months late with a bad pun* I'm sorry. I'll let you read it.

 **Mending**

Annabeth had fought hellhounds, dracanae, empousai. She'd fought Titans, Giants, survived two wars before she was legally allowed to drink. She'd been hit by arrows, taken a poisoned dagger to the shoulder, broken ribs and walked miles in the deepest parts of hell on a broken ankle. She'd held up the bloody sky. She had considered herself quite resistant to pain.

And yet, childbirth… was something to consider. No wonder every polytheist culture in the world had several goddesses for it. That thing _hurt._ You'd think someone would have invented a better method by now. 'I'm going to go up to Olympus and propose a theory on why they should invent a new way to birth babies,' she thought somewhere into the third hour of contractions. 'I am NEVER doing this again,' she thought midway the process of pushing a small-sized human through an even smaller place. 'I am going to kill my husband,' was also somewhere in there.

And then, 'Oh.'

That's why no one had invented a better method yet. All the pain goes out the window the moment they put her son in her arms.

He's perfect. Ten little toes and ten little fingers. Pink, wrinkled face and crying up a storm. He's tiny and warm and the way he instinctively cuddles up to her makes something inside her – the something broken that's been twisted and gnarled and broken and never quite managed to straighten – mend back together and fall into place. Percy forgive her, but she has a new favorite person. He'll understand, though, she'd bet good money he feels the same. Percy touches his forehead to hers and laughs – a strangled, incredulous sound that's followed by something that sounds like a sob – and they are all very hormonally charged right now, but the tears that roll down her cheeks are more than that. She thinks about the scared little girl running away from home because she thought she wasn't wanted, thinks about dejectedly calling Chiron and asking him to pick her up because they still didn't want her enough, thinks about a house in California that is nice but will never be home – things she'd thought didn't hurt anymore, things she had thought she'd moved past.

Percy presses a kiss to her temple and mumbles in her ear "Oh my gods, I love you so much," and she finally, finally heals. She's battered, and bruised, and scarred, but for the first time ever, she's whole.

Theirs is the most chaotic room in the maternity wing. The nurses had tried to contain their family and friends, but Frank had risen to full height and used his praetor voice, Jason had given them the son of Jupiter look and Piper had kept them all from getting kicked out by laying the charmspeak on thick. Hazel put the icing on the cake with some mist manipulation and that's how there are four anxious demigods, two exhausted new parents and one proud grandma stuffed in the small room, against the universe's better judgment.

Logan Alexander Jackson melts all of their hearts.

He is not a particularly fussy baby, takes being handed from adult to adult to be cooed at with the benevolent grace only a newborn can manage, but if it takes too long to be handed back to mom or dad he's not afraid to demonstrate he's got a pair of lungs on him. Everyone's brought presents, a blue onesie from Sally, the cutest pair of little converses from Piper and Jason, and a lovely baby blanket hand-knitted by Hazel that they immediately wrap him in.

Hazel and Frank have to start the long, long drive back to New Rome, so they don't stay much, but Piper and Jason hang around a while. It's really amusing, because she's going on her fourth month of pregnancy and the hormones are hitting hard, she only puts Logan down when he cries for his parents, meanwhile Jason mostly looks back and forth between Logan and Piper's belly with wide mesmerized eyes, like he's just now making the connection between pregnant wife and future baby. The nurse comes by and tells them visiting hour is over (ignoring the fact that it technically hadn't started) and Percy stops Piper and Jason on the way out. He and Annabeth share one of those looks that hold a whole silent conversation and then they turn to the younger couple with beaming smiles. They are not exactly religious, but they agree the concept is pretty good anyway, so how would they feel about being Logan's godparents?

Piper cries and blames it on the hormones. Jason sniffles a bit and has absolutely no excuse.

Sometime later in the evening Will drops by, wearing his labcoat and winking at them conspiratorially. He's dragging a beet red Nico by the hand, and holding a package wrapped in golden laminated paper. He nudges 'Nicks' forward and makes him hand them the gift, which he practically shoves in Percy's hands with a mumbled 'congratulations'. The only thing holding him in place is Will's hand around his wrist, but when Annabeth peels away the wrapping and it reveals a cute, bright yellow stuffed duckling and Will announces to the room Nicks had picked it himself, he instantly shadow-travels out of the room. Boyfriend and all.

Logan is doing alright, he's got the right weight, he's feeding okay, he's got top-notch newborn reflexes and mom and dad seem capable of keeping baby alive for the time being. The nice med student who'd turned out to be a daughter of Apollo tells them they are alright to leave in the morning and asks for a picture with them just for good measure ("my half-siblings will never believe it").

It is precisely because she is a demigod and knows her recent camp half-blood history that she allows one last visitor.

Leo knocks on their door. He hasn't changed since the last time they'd seen him, which had been about a year ago on Hazel and Frank's wedding, but seeing him had turned into something so sporadic it's always a surprise to see the grown man standing where the skinny boy used to be. It takes some adjusting every time. He's got a new scar above his eyebrow, but looks otherwise the same. Calypso isn't with him – she never is when Percy and Annabeth are concerned – and it's awkward, always, always awkward to ask how they're doing and what's happened in their latest travels and know she's in a hotel room killing time because of their unresolved history that's filled with could-have-beens and guilt and hurt.

But Leo's here and he doesn't hold anything against them, and it's enough.

He seems a bit sheepish for having missed his friends' entire foray into pregnancy and parenthood preparations, but he makes no apologies and they wouldn't ask for one anyway. He talks a mile a minute about all he's been through the last couple of weeks, while leaning over Logan's little hospital cot, waving his fingers and twisting his features into funny cartoonish faces, to the little one's astonishment. Logan doesn't laugh, babies don't do it consciously that early on, but he seems awfully interested when Uncle Leo goes cross-eyed.

And then Leo somehow pulls out a toy ship from his magical tool belt, like he's freaking Doctor Who or something, and it's _awesome._ It's a perfect miniature of the Argo – their Argo – in all its beautiful, gleaming, pre-war glory, full with a little Festus figurehead on the front and oars that actually row. He turns to Annabeth and starts explaining how it works – turns out there's about fifteen on and off switches that control different parts of the ship. There's a button to move mini-Festus, there's a switch to move the oars, to turn on the nightlight function (which lights up Festus' eyes like a car's headlights), there's even a secret code you type that can make it fly.

They just stare at him in amazement, completely speechless because this is so much more than they expected. He is a son of Hephaestus and building things is second nature, but something like that doesn't get done in a day, he clearly dedicated himself to it. They realize then, he might not have been physically with them through the whole parenthood process, but that didn't mean he never thought of them.

They carefully lay the ship next to Logan on the cot. His chubby hand closes around one of the oars and he promptly falls asleep.

It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Hours after Leo leaves, when they already finished repacking the last bags and stuffing the gifts into a borrowed duffel, Annabeth finds something she hadn't seen before, tucked inside one of the crannies of the Argo 2.0. She looks up to ask Percy what he thinks it is, but he is snoring away on the armchair, Logan curled up against his chest because he'd been rocking him to sleep. Her heart does that familiar somersault she associates with utter happiness and it almost doesn't matter, she almost leaves the hidden gift for tomorrow and joins them. But she's still an inquisitive daughter of Athena, so she squeezes her fingers behind the miniature helm and tugs out a small silky pouch.

There's a pressed flower inside, something that she'd recognize anywhere from nightmares and long gone bouts of teenage jealousy, the flower that still grows outside Sally's apartment and shines brighter than all the dull stars in the polluted New York night sky. For one second she's fifteen and positively livid again, burning with a jealousy she hasn't felt in years, until-

It's a note. It's late at night, the room is dark and the handwriting is cursive, but there's no mistaking the _"I'm sorry"_ scrawled on the back of that petal. And she thinks she gets it now, understands what's kept her away all these years, because the bittersweet memories of a could-have-been might hurt, but remorse hurts worse. And though a bitter curse thrown in desperate jealousy lies between them, Annabeth can recognize a peace offering when she sees one.

She decides to take it.

There are at least five children of Apollo working on the hospital the morning they leave. How does Annabeth know? They all show up to say goodbye.

Bearing gifts.

And it seems everyone somehow caught wind that two of the heroes of Olympus just had a baby, because when they get home from the slowest drive since the Ford-T was invented ("you don't actually need to drive that slow, Percy" "Safety first, Annabeth! Baby aboard!") there is a pile of presents on their coffee table. Hermes is sitting on their couch checking out his emails, and hands over the receipt for them to sign like it's no big deal. They try asking him to take all of them back, but one does not return a gift from the gods. Even if said gift happens to be a fully functioning miniature version of the sun chariot.

They accept his congratulations and reluctantly sign the receipt, then promptly decide to never touch any of the gifts. A quick trip to Camp would fix it all, Chiron could deal with all of those "amazing" offerings until Logan was old enough to manipulate celestial bronze arrows.

Logan's only days old and he already resembles Percy. He's got a few strands of baby soft black hair covering his head and his squinting eyes are already turning greener. Percy swears up and down he's got her nose, but she can't see it. She honestly can't really see specific features in him aside from her husband's general coloring. For all their family and friends speculate about the chin, and the mouth, and that little spot right under his ear, all Annabeth sees is _cute, cute_ , _cute, tiny, warm, perfect, my son, mine, mine, mine._ She feels kind of bad for Percy, actually, because the first few days she doesn't want to put Logan down at all, walks around the house rocking and bouncing him, talking to him in a dumb baby voice she hadn't thought she was capable of, only hands him over to Percy when she needs sleep, or a shower, or lunch proves to be too tricky to eat one-handed.

She seriously doesn't want to part with him, and whenever people come by to visit them they all have a good laugh and blame it on hormones, and she just shakes her head and goes along with it because yes, it makes sense, it's totally all the hormones' fault. It doesn't occur to her that it's something different until she's lying awake at three in the morning, staring down at an efficiently swaddled Logan that's dozing off against her, and realizes she's been up for the past half hour staring at him and crying. When her sniffles get a bit loud, Percy's arm comes around her waist and he presses her tight against him, nuzzling her neck with his nose and mumbling comfortingly, "He's safe, Annabeth, he's safe, he's ours and he's _real_."

It hits her then. She hadn't realized, because she'd been pushing the thought down the whole nine months she'd carried Logan, she'd been pushing it down for the past few days, she'd been trying to ignore it because this was a happy moment, and she didn't want it to be marred with shadows from her past, but she can't help it now. She'd been so _afraid._ So many things could have gone wrong, so, so much. Demigods don't live this long, demigods don't survive this far, demigods don't get married and have children, demigods don't get a happy ending, but she's got all this and she is _so happy_ it doesn't seem like it's real at times. And for the past few days she has stayed up far into the small hours of morning despite all the exhaustion because she is too afraid to sleep and wake up in the Argo, alone and scared, with a whole impossible war looming on the horizon and suicidal quests to pull through, knowing these years of happiness were just a cruel dream built by a hopeless, wistful mind.

She squeezes her eyes shut, tears slipping out and landing on the mattress, and for once she knows her crying has nothing to do with hormones. She knows that, because Percy's face is pressed against the back of her neck, and she can feel his own tears dampening her hair. This isn't hormones, it's just a pair of damaged kids who have fought for so long they can't believe they're finally getting peace. They've been broken so long they've forgotten what it's like to be whole.

But they'll learn.

Through sleepless nights, and dirty diapers, and three a.m. feedings, and colics, and temper tantrums, and first smiles, and first words, and first steps.

They will learn.

And they will mend.


End file.
